11-CS-1 Engineering Economics
The Complementary Studies exam most candidates meet first, because the CS slot is in nearly every exam program. It is about making and defending money decisions on engineering projects: comparing options over their lives, with interest, taxes and uncertainty in the picture.
Study 11-CS-1 on your phone: the topics past sittings asked most, a few minutes at a time.
In production now, in our first wave.
Also written 11 CS 1; APEGA's list of exams shows it as 98-CS-1.
Reviewed by Reza Kashi, P.Eng. Updated .
Equivalent annual cost
A town can buy pump A for $48,000 (operating $6,500 a year, salvage $4,000) or pump B for $62,000 ($4,200 a year, salvage $6,000). Both last 10 years. At 6%, which has the lower equivalent annual cost, and by how much?
What it covers
- Cash flow and the time value of money
- Nominal and effective interest rates, applied to loans, mortgages and bonds
- Present worth, annual equivalent and rate of return comparisons
- Independent and mutually exclusive projects, lease or buy decisions
- After-tax analysis with capital cost allowance and corporate income tax
- Financing and capital budgeting
- Break-even, sensitivity and risk analysis
On exam day
- Open book: printed books and your own printed notes are allowed; digital copies are not (EGBC Fall 2026 schedule).
- Any non-communicating, non-programmable calculator. Bring your own compound interest factor tables.
- Written online and remotely proctored. EGBC's candidate guide describes a 15-minute grace period at the start and up to 30 minutes after the exam to upload your written solutions.
Texts the syllabus names
- Fraser, Jewkes, Pirnia and Schmitt, Engineering Economics: Financial Decision Making for Engineers, Canadian edition (Engineers Canada's current primary text)
- Newnan, Jones, Whittaker, Eschenbach and Lavelle, Engineering Economic Analysis
- PEO's own 2014 list names Global Engineering Economics, 4th edition, by Fraser, Jewkes, Bernhardt and Tajima
What we are building
- A lesson and a set of original problems for every topic above
- Worked solutions that show the cash-flow diagram before the arithmetic
- Two timed, open-book mock exams with factor-table practice
Most tested, 2013 to 2019
Five topics came up in all 14 sittings and carried 70% of the marks on offer: present and future worth, rate of return, comparing projects, nominal and effective interest, and annual worth. Since December 2013 every paper had five questions, of which candidates answered four. Bonds, inflation, sensitivity and payback never appeared.
From 14 sittings and 71 questions of the papers EGBC published. Statistics only: we do not reproduce the questions. Read our method
| Topic | Sittings | Share of marks |
|---|---|---|
| Present worth and future worth analysis | 14 of 14 | 18.9% |
| Rate of return analysis (IRR, incremental IRR, MARR) | 14 of 14 | 13.8% |
| Comparing mutually exclusive and independent projects | 14 of 14 | 13.4% |
| Nominal and effective interest rates | 14 of 14 | 12.2% |
| Annual worth (annual equivalent) analysis | 14 of 14 | 11.5% |
| Cash flow diagrams and time value of money | 13 of 14 | 9.3% |
| Break-even analysis | 12 of 14 | 8.7% |
| Replacement analysis (economic life, sunk cost) | 8 of 14 | 6.7% |
| Depreciation and capital cost allowance (CCA) | 8 of 14 | 2.3% |
| After-tax analysis and corporate income tax | 2 of 14 | 1.6% |
More complementary studies exams
- 11-CS-2 Engineering in Society: Health and Safety
- 11-CS-3 Sustainability, Engineering and the Environment
- 11-CS-4 Engineering Management